April 29, 2020

Donald Trump Just Went on TV and Compared COVID-19 to a Campfire, We Think

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At an industry roundtable on Wednesday, Trump set out to assure Americans that soon the country will reopen, the coronavirus will disappear, and things will be just as they were three months ago. 

And then he took questions.

“Without a vaccine, sir, why do you think the the virus is going to be gone?” asked CBS News reporter Ben Tracy.

“It’s gonna go,” Trump responded. “It’s gonna leave. It’s gonna be gone. It’s gonna be eradicated. It might take longer, it might be in smaller sections. It won’t be what we had.” He went on, “If you have a flare-up in a certain area—I call them burning embers—boom, we put it out. We know how to put it out now.” 

It perhaps goes without saying that we are a long way from “knowing how to put it out.” Yesterday, the American death toll from the coronavirus surpassed that of the Vietnam War. More than a million Americans have tested positive for the virus; less than 2 percent of Americans have been tested. 

Perhaps exchanges like these are why, per the Washington Post, officials have advised Trump to stop answering questions from reporters. 

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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